Day: October 12, 2012

A new study found that worriers who begin to chastise themselves at the mere thought of doing something wrong are less likely to behave immorally as a result of their unwavable conscience.

In contrast some 30 to 40 per cent of people fit the opposite category and give very little forethought to how their actions will make them feel – a recipe for unethical behaviour, psychologists say.

Women are more likely to feel pre-emptive guilt than men, and older people tend to anticipate feelings of shame and regret better than those who are younger and less experienced in life.

Writing in the Current Directions in Psychological Science journal, experts explained the difference between guilt – the feeling of remorse when you have done something wrong – and “guilt proneness”, where you anticipate feeling ashamed before you have actually done any wrong.

People who are predisposed to such thoughts make better friends, lovers and employees because they are so aware of their own behaviour that they do not need anyone to supervise them or keep them in check, they said…

Four items drawn from the Guilt and Shame Proneness scale (GASP), a test in which people are required to imagine how they would feel in a variety of different situations, can be combined to form “an important measurement tool for predicting which individuals are likely to behave unethically in their social interactions inside and outside the workplace,” they wrote…

As a result they are less prone to lie, cheat or behave immorally when they conduct a business deal or spot an opportunity to make money, studies suggest.

They are also likely to make better employees because people who think less about the future results of their actions are more likely to be late, to steal or to be rude to clients…

1) Finding a notice in your luggage saying it was searched by federal authorities? Or, 2) Finding an inspection notice, but learning that no one had actually bothered to search it?

It was the second scenario that led to last year’s firing of 36 Transportation Security Administration screeners at Honolulu International Airport.

The Department of Homeland Security’s independent inspector general announced Tuesday that a whistle-blower triggered investigations when he came forward with video showing some TSA officers skirting procedures.

“Among other things, the (video showed screeners) opening bags, placing notices of inspection inside and transporting them back to the airline without screening them,” read a report from the inspector general.

How much of the world spends as much money as we do on federally-mandated paranoia – and do they get results as mediocre?

I don’t doubt in the least we pay top dollar for bureaucrats to oversee the process. Then, we seem to use the funds for staff that handles required tasks – to peform make-work solutions for school dropouts.

A Republican precinct chairman running for a seat on the Fort Bend County Commissioner’s Court has cast ballots in both Texas and Pennsylvania in the last three federal elections, official records in both states show.

Bruce J. Fleming, a Sugar Land resident running for Precinct 1 commissioner, voted in person in Sugar Land in 2006, 2008 and 2010 and by mail in each of those years in Yardley, Pa., according to election records in both states…

According to the Texas Election Code, knowingly voting or attempting to vote more than once in an election was a third-degree felony until the Texas Legislature upgraded the offense to a second-degree felony in 2011. “These are serious allegations, and until they’re investigated, we’re going to reserve comment,” said Fort Bend County GOP Chairman Mike Gibson.

Incumbent Commissioner Richard Morrison and fellow Fort Bend Democrats took aim at Catherine Engelbrecht, founder and president of True the Vote, a Houston-based tea party group dedicated to combating voter fraud nationwide and pushing for voter photo identification. Engelbrecht lives in Fort Bend’s Precinct 1.

“While local and national Republican leaders were tilting at the windmills of imaginary voter fraud, real voter fraud was taking place under their noses,” said Fort Bend County Democratic Chairman Steve Brown. “It demonstrates that the Republicans’ crusade against voter fraud is either disingenuous or ill- conceived – maybe both – to be totally unaware of a serial fraudulent voter like Fleming while aggressively harassing little old ladies attempting to vote in Briargate (a Houston neighborhood in Fort Bend County).”

Har.

Chickens come home to roost and the only blather out of the mouth of the Kool Aid Party types is a listing of the absentee ballots they’re challenging.

Meanwhile, Providence says its intention is to take the oil from Barryroe to Cork, but that it is a decision that will be made on a commercial basis closer to the time of extraction.

Some 25% in revenue of what is potentially billions of pounds worth of oil will, however, be a huge boost to a country which has never successfully extracted a drop of oil in the past.

Predictable fears come forth from all the usual sources. That doesn’t lessen legitimate concerns about pollution, safety, especially in offshore drilling and platform maintenance. European track record is a helluva a lot better than in the US – and I would expect that professional standards for oversight would be in place.

This ain’t going to be The Dept of the Interior having sex raves with Bush Administration hacks. I hope.

At Ngoc Sinh Seafoods Trading & Processing Export Enterprise, a seafood exporter on Vietnam’s southern coast, workers stand on a dirty floor sorting shrimp one hot September day. There’s trash on the floor, and flies crawl over baskets of processed shrimp stacked in an unchilled room in Ca Mau.

Elsewhere in Ca Mau, Nguyen Van Hoang packs shrimp headed for the U.S. in dirty plastic tubs. He covers them in ice made with tap water that the Vietnamese Health Ministry says should be boiled before drinking because of the risk of contamination with bacteria. Vietnam ships 100 million pounds of shrimp a year to the U.S. That’s almost 8 percent of the shrimp Americans eat.

Using ice made from tap water in Vietnam is dangerous because it can spread bacteria to the shrimp, microbiologist Mansour Samadpour says, “Those conditions — ice made from dirty water, animals near the farms, pigs — are unacceptable,” says Samadpour, whose company, IEH Laboratories & Consulting Group, specializes in testing water for shellfish farming.

SGS spokeswoman Jennifer Buckley says her company has no record of auditing Ngoc Sinh.

At Chen Qiang’s tilapia farm in Yangjiang city in China’s Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong, Chen feeds fish partly with feces from hundreds of pigs and geese. That practice is dangerous for American consumers, says Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety.

“The manure the Chinese use to feed fish is frequently contaminated with microbes like salmonella,” says Doyle, who has studied foodborne diseases in China…

Kind of an incomplete story – even before the little editing I’ve done. Still – it’s enough to scare the crap out of me.

I buy Asian seafood occasionally, relying on retailers who perform their own checks on shipments from all of their suppliers. But, I think I’ll send them a link to this story and ask for a comment.

China-based Lenovo Group has become the world’s number one maker of personal computers.

Research firm Gartner reported on Wednesday that the Chinese company knocked California-based Hewlett Packard from the top spot in the third quarter of 2012.

“We are establishing even deeper roots in each major market around the world. In addition to localised sales and distribution teams in major markets, we are establishing an even stronger manufacturing footprint,” Yuanqing Yang, Lenovo Chairman and CEO, said in a statement about the continued growth of the $8.2bn company…

The Chinese company, which vaulted into the PC market by buying IBM’s personal computer division in 2005, took the top spot for the first time by growing its market share to 15.7 per cent, shipping an estimated 13.77 million units during the quarter, up nearly 10 per cent from a year ago, Gartner said…

Overall, however, global demand for personal computers dropped over eight per cent last quater because of the rise of portable gadgets such as tablets, as well as a slowing economy.

This year the company has bought Brazilian electronics maker CCE, valued at a base price of $148mn, and US cloud computing firm Stoneware.

Good grief. Hasn’t the Party-formerly-known-as-Republican discovered this was happening? Surely this must be another reason for several of the Congressional committees they control to waste more taxpayer dollars in hearings aimed at building more fear and trepidation among voters.

Still my favorite sign from the Women's March against our so-called president